


They're Both Red Except the School Bus

by yamyamyam



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Sex, Because comic book science, But not in the same dimension, Goats, Human Disaster Clint Barton, M/M, Rimming, but don't worry they also make out, long expository dialogue, seriously these guys talk soooo much, they don't make out with the goats, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:33:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17695967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yamyamyam/pseuds/yamyamyam
Summary: Clint's been dreading meeting his soulmate since he was old enough to read his words. Clint's also been bad at listening to safety warnings since about the same time. Now he's in another universe, everyone's part dog or something, and his huge hopeless crush on Bucky is maybe not so hopeless after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love both A/B/O and Soulmate fics, while recognizing how ridic they are. I decided to put them in a jar and shake it up to see them fight it out. XD

Steve is going to be insufferable today, Clint just knows it, but somehow he's volunteered for a front-row seat. Again. Bucky's been in the deep-freeze in Wakanda for 7 months now, but word just came from Shuri to The Nomad & Friends™ that the cure is ready. Today's the big day, Steve is having puppies, and Clint volunteered to pilot their (kind of stolen) Quinjet to Wakanda so Steve can concentrate on not being able to concentrate.

Clint isn't upset that Bucky's about to be cured; hell he's overjoyed too. Just... it's been a little less painful these last seven months, not having to watch Steve and Bucky fawn over each other. They're soulmates, they're in love, they've been reunited after 70 years of separation in the craziest love story of all time. Clint gets it. Just... he wishes it was him Bucky looked at that way. It's silly; he barely even knows the guy, and he's so, so, so taken. And yet... the moment they met, something jumped to life in Clint, a simmering in his heart that hasn't stopped since. He half-way expected Bucky to say his words, even knowing Steve and Buck's bond cemented like a century ago. Just, it felt so much like all the descriptions of meeting your soulmate. But nothing happened. Bucky said something else; his words didn't activate; Clint's just got a regular old crush and he needs to get over it. He's a grown-up. Right?

Clint probably needs to get over the whole idea of love, period. He's always known he was doomed to failure in that department. His own soul Words tell the whole story. "You know my words? Get the fuck away from me!" It's not exactly love at first sight. Clint feels sorry for whoever his soulmate is - he hopes they're not looking for him. The dumpster fire reality of Clint Barton could only disappoint them, and it sounds like they're going to figure that out right from the start. Maybe they'll get lucky and their Meeting will be when they're old and grey, minimize the pain.

Okay, get it together Barton, you're supposedly doing this because you're the focused one here.

They arrive in Wakandan airspace, Clint gets clearance, and that ridiculous, awesome, whole-country-covering shield sprouts a little door for them to fly through. God he wants like, seven of those. Y'know, safehouse-sized. T'Challa meets them at the palace entrance, all smiles. "Come, Captain, Hawkeye. Shuri is waiting."

=====

Shuri isn't just waiting, she's bouncing. "Come, come! Oh, I can't wait to see his face!" Clint looks around the lab, a little overawed by the sheer variety of weird stuff, silver and blue and beepy and holographic and-- "Clint! Don't touch anything!"

Clint quickly retracts his hand from a blender-looking device he was about to poke. "Of course not!"

Shuri hops over to the far side of the room, where Bucky is unconscious on a gurney. He's not going to be awake for the cure part - once the doctor gives the okay that the cryo drugs have left his system, Shuri's... brain... thingy will run, neutralizing the triggers. At least Clint thinks that's what they said. 

Steve starts hovering too, and the doctor looks between him and Shuri and sighs heavily. "You are like children," she says, frowning at some readout on a terminal next to the gurney. Shuri sticks her tongue out behind the doctor's back, not helping her case much.

Finally the doc says it's okay, and Shuri takes over. She stabs at a button with a flourish, and steps back.

"How long will it take?" asks Steve.

"It's done," she replies smugly.

Steve's jaw drops, and he looks over at Bucky.

"He'll wake up in the next few minutes. Then we can test the triggers."

Steve narrows his eyes. "I thought you said it was a sure thing."

Shuri rolls her eyes. "And it is! But surely Sergeant Barnes will want to be reassured."

Steve, chastened, holds up his hands in apology.

Sure enough, Bucky wakes up a few minutes later, and Steve explains that it's been seven months, that they've found a cure, that's it's already been administered. Bucky sits up on the gurney, looking a little disoriented. "That's... that's amazing. Are we sure that..."

"You wanna test it?"

Bucky looks gratefully at Steve. "I do, yeah. Just you in the room, okay? I don't want to hurt anyone, but you can take it."

Steve frowns. "You're not gonna hurt anyone. You're cured. But uh... I don't think my Russian is up to it, actually."

Clint pipes up from where he's been standing politely back. "Mine's pretty good. Do we know the words?"

Bucky nods grimly. "I'll write them down for you."

They end up recording Clint's voice on Steve's phone, then Steve and Bucky go to a gymnasium and play it back. They return to the lab in high spirits. 

"Shuri! It worked!" Bucky picks Shuri up in a big hug and swings her around. She laughs and swats at his arm.

"Of course it did! I told you, I am a genius."

"You said it, baby doll, you said it." Bucky is grinning like a loon and Shuri looks smug as anything, and why not; the whole thing sounds like science fiction if you say it out loud, but she pulled it off. Somehow she pulled it off.

Clint drifts off, leaving them to celebrate. Steve and Bucky have got to have a million things to catch up on, and Clint doesn't need to watch them finishing each other's sentences, kissing with passionate relief, casually throwing arms around each other. He's happy for both of them, but he's got limits. He idly circles the lab, admiring machines large and small with functions he can't fathom. He starts assigning them names. "You can be the Frog-remixer. Ah, this must be the lamborghini-polisher!"

He's almost done the whole loop when he gets to-- "Oho, and who could forget the world-famous Easy-Bake earwax--"

Shuri shouts "CLINT! NO!" just as his hand reaches out absently to brush the device, but it's too late.

Clint vanishes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint is not in Kansas anymore. He's in Iowa. So... pretty good guess, actually.

"...Easy-Bake earwax defroster."

Clint is in mid-air. Falling rapidly. 

Okay, this looks bad.

Clint is _naked._

Clint is naked, in mid-air, falling rapidly.

This _really_ looks bad.

This is not his first fall from a dangerous height. It's not his first this week, for that matter. He sighs, tries to fight the adrenaline and untense, and gets ready to roll, or at least try to.

Fifty feet later he hits a field of corn at speed. Unpleasantly, he remains conscious. He's pretty sure he would rather pass out, but them's the breaks.

Speaking of breaks, he takes a survey. He can wiggle his toes, looks like his spine isn't like, severed. So that's a plus. Sore all over, check. Left upper leg in agony, yeah, that's probably broken. Dignity: definitely broken. Why the fuck is he naked?

"Why the fuck am I naked?"

Clint starts. He didn't say that. But it was his voice.

"Why the fuck am I naked and why are there _two_ of me?" repeats the voice.

Standing over him, fully dressed in rough and ready jeans and a plaid shirt, holding a bow - not his usual, but she looks sweet - is Clint Barton.

"Wow," say the Clints.

=====

Clint helps Clint back to the farmhouse, splints up his leg, and gets some morphine in to him. His first aid kit would put a small hospital to shame, and Clint, knowing himself, approves. His counterpart gets him a pair of sweat-pants and a t-shirt and awkwardly helps him get them on, cutting off most of one leg on the pants. Clint apologizes, but Clint waves him off. "If I can't help myself, who can I help?" The Clints pause for a minute. "This is so weird," they say.

Clint is glad for the dulling effect of the morphine when he gets his next surprise: Laura Barton. Clint's wife. He has a wife?!

It turns out there are kids, too, three of them, but Clint and Laura exchange looks and decide to keep them out of the kitchen where their doppeldaddy is lying, half-naked and bleeding on things. 

"I'll take them to the park, honey." She leans in and kisses her Clint on the mouth, and... huh. They look good together. Clint could never in a million years imagine being married to a woman, hell, being married at all, never mind the straight part. But apparently at least one version of him can pull it off. "And... good luck to you, hon." Laura leans down and kisses Clint on the cheek. Aw. She's sweet.

Clint is maybe ready for a nap now.

Farmer Clint gets out a cellphone and starts dialling. "Hey, Nat? Can you come out here? Kind of a long story, but I've got someone you need to meet, pronto."

Yup. Nap time. Clint passes out.

=====

He wakes up in a Quinjet, on a gurney. "Hello?"

"You're awake." Natasha sets aside the controls, and walks over. "Don't worry, I can fix that." She injects something in to Clint's thigh, and it's nap time again, and Clint is really not in a position to complain.

=====

He wakes up next in medical at the Avengers tower. His leg is in a cast and he's dressed in a hospital gown. He sits up a bit and takes a peek. Walking cast, thank god. He hates crutches. And it's purple fibreglass. Dawww. Despite the married with kids thing, this place's Clint obviously has the important things in common with him.

He hears voices in the hall.

"...just found him in his cornfield. Naked!" Tony? Apparently in this universe Clint's not on the run from him and the law with Steve and the gang. Well, that's nice.

"Well, if it could happen to anyone, you know it would be Clint." That's definitely Natasha.

"What I don't get is that he doesn't smell like anything." Steve. And what is THAT supposed to mean? Does the local Clint have a BO problem?

"He has no designation? Could he just be a Beta with a subtle scent?" Tony again.

"Not that I can tell. With a break that bad he should be oozing stress pheromones, but he's not. It's like he's just blank." Nat again. Oozing?

Well, might as well dive in. "Uh, guys? In here?"

Tony pokes his head in the door. "Hey, look who's awake! It's clone Clint!" 

"Hey Tony! I'm not a clone, though. I don't think."

"You so rarely do." 

"Thanks, Tony."

"So, you want to tell us how you wound up naked in Clint's cornfield, not-a-clone?" Natasha sits down, looking casual, but with iron in her voice.

Clint sighs. "I can tell you what I saw happen, but as for how it worked, hell if I know."

Steve comes in and sits next to Natasha, wearing his serious Captain America face. "Why don't you start at the beginning."

=====

A long, confusing conversation follows. 

The first part is quick - Clint touched a... something... in a lab, and then poof, he was falling starkers in to Iowa corn. Here endeth my tale. 

But after that things get messy. Clint asks about the smell thing. They ask about his "tattoo." It turns out there just... aren't soul bonds in this universe. And what they DO have...

Tony looks fascinated and disgusted with him, which is rich coming from Tony. "So okay, you come from a place where no one has a designation, but you all have freaky mystical tattoos? How do you have kids, the tattoo fairy?" 

"Uh... Sex? How does it work here?" 

"Well sex, yeah, but your cycle is pretty heavily involved."

The "cycle" turns out to be heats and ruts, like they're all dogs or wolves or something. He makes the mistake of calling them werewolves once and immediately regrets it.

"That's an ignorant myth! Humans do not have wolf DNA, it's a case of convergent evolu--"

"Tony, enough, he doesn't know better." Steve sighs for about the 19th time this hour.

So, okay. They have Alphas - Steve is one - and they're the grunt grunt masculine male types, they gravitate to leadership roles, have _ruts_ , ew, and... Clint is given a booklet aimed at teens titled "So Your Body's Presenting," and the diagram of a knot just about makes his asshole retract up to his ears. Ouch.

And they have Omegas - Tony is one, and apparently the other Clint is too - they are the nesting type, have heats, carry young - even the guys! How does that even work? He's afraid to look at the omega section of the booklet to find out what kind of man-cloaca is involved; it's been a long enough day already.

And Betas - Nat is one - they're sort of the middle ground. They can be fertile, but only in what strikes Clint as the normal, sane way: men do the sperm thing, women carry the child - but usually they have a low sex drive and are super focused on work or other passions instead. Clint can believe this; "focused" is a wild, wild understatement when it comes to Natasha, about... just about anything she does. 

Alpha/Omega pairs tend to have large families while Betas often don't have children at all.

"But not to say an alpha can't go with an alpha, or, or any other combination of designations! We're not bigots here or anything," Steve adds, hastily. Clint's head spins, imagining all the queerness-squared possibilities this opens up. This booklet is probably not going to be enough. But eh, it's not going to be that important, because:

Then there's Clint, who isn't any of those things. The doctors are apparently astonished and want to scan the hell out of him and study his blood and glands. Clint blanches a bit at that - he's not sure exactly how you study a gland, but it sounds uncomfortable.

Eventually they get around to talking about the local Avengers. It turns out that their Clint is retired - voluntarily, not the mandatory Sokovia Accords kind Clint had done for a while back home. Thor is a known friend, but off-planet at the moment. Bruce isn't around, having said "call me if there are aliens again. ONLY if there are aliens again." Which doesn't surprise Clint. The hulk transformation always looked pretty agonizing. Rhodey is in the airforce, natch, but does have the iron patriot suit and suits up when the force approves it. Sam is in DC but sometimes comes up to bust some heads from above as needed. 

Vision and Wanda are shacked up upstate. Clint is about to go all protective dad about that on Wanda's behalf, before realizing that technically Vision is like, a year old, and Wanda's the cradle-robber. His brain neatly ties itself in a knot at the thought of that and he lets the news slide by without comment. More boggling is the news that _Pietro_ lives up there with them, is alive here, didn't bleed out in front of this Clint's helpless eyes. 

And Tony and Nat and Steve are here, pretty much being the Ironman and Black Widow and Captain America that Clint knows.

Almost.

"So what about Bucky? He living with you here or in Brooklyn, Steve?"

A stormcloud descends on Steve's face. Tony sucks in a breath and strategically decides to go get a coffee. Natasha presses a sympathetic hand to Steve's shoulder and follows Tony. Uh oh.

Steve explains. Bucky's alive, Bucky's been rescued from Hydra, but he's locked up in a secure facility. Clint is furious, starts to interrupt, but Steve holds up a hand. 

"It was his idea. He doesn't want to be free. He's worried Hydra will trigger him again and he'll hurt someone." Steve punches his thigh in frustration, hard enough that it would probably have broken a bone if it had been Clint's leg - if he hadn't already done the job himself, har har - but it's Steve, so it probably won't even bruise.

"But... why isn't Shuri fixing him?" Not that he's _broken_ , but the triggers are for sure a downer.

"Why... what? Who?"

"Shuri. The lab I was in? That was her lab. They had just administered the cure to Bucky and tested that it was successful when I, uh, left. Some kind of brain... thing... okay I don't know the details, I'm not a science nerd, but it worked. He was free of them."

Steve locks eyes with Clint. "Do you know how to find her?"

"If she's in the same place here, sure. Been there lots of times."

"Then let's get you some pants and get moving."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky meets Clint. Clint meets Bucky. Bucky Meets Clint. Clint Meets Bucky.

Bucky's quarters aren't the cell Clint was imagining, but a small apartment, with a little separated bedroom, a table and chairs, a bookshelf, a small sofa, a TV, a computer. It looks cozy, if you ignore the reinforced steel walls, the armed guards outside, the way it's embedded in a secure military psychiatric hospital.

"Steve? I wasn't expecting you this week." 

Clint's mouth goes dry as Bucky walks in to view. God, this universe's Bucky is just as gorgeous as the one at home. _And probably just as taken,_ he chastises himself, tamping down the fizzing feeling in his chest, on his back.

"I got some good news and I couldn't wait, Buck. I brought someone with me who might be able to help with your trigger words." 

Clint steps out and waves. 

Bucky freezes, a look of panic on his face. "You know my words? Get the fuck away from me!" 

Clint's jaw drops, eyes widened in shock. He can feel his words tingling, buzzing on his back. 

Bucky is backing away. "Steve, what the hell? Is this some kind of sick joke?" 

Clint tries to focus through the eight different directions his mind wants to run off in. He holds his hands up and tries to make himself look small. "Hey, no, it's not like that! I don't know the words to trigger you!" At least, not all of them. That was a weird-ass list and Clint's forgotten most of it already. "But I might know someone who can take them out." 

Clint's words go from buzzing to, to _singing_ , dancing, Clint isn't sure how to describe the feeling of pleasure and, and _rightness_ he is feeling. This has to be his soul bond's completion; what else could it be? Bucky _said his words_. But this place doesn't have soul bonds... does it? 

Bucky does not look calmed by Clint's reassurance, instead he's swatting at his leg, a terrified expression on his face. "What the fuck..." 

Steve looks lost, eyes darting between Clint - and what does he look like? Shocked? Orgasmic? Stoned? Clint has no idea what his face is doing but he's pretty sure it's not a flattering look - and Bucky, who is now scrabbling at his pant leg. Steve shakes himself and strides over to Bucky, only to stop, uncertain. "There's some fucking... acid or..." Bucky pauses to sit down heavily on the floor, looking dazed. "Stevie, I feel... strange." 

The pulsing feeling of connection is finally settling down to a manageable background thrum. Steve looks up at him from where he's kneeling next to Bucky, clutching him helplessly; Steve never did like problems you couldn't punch your way through. 

Clint clears his throat. "I think I can explain."

It takes some time for Bucky to settle down enough to be able to listen, but he gets there, and he, Steve, and Clint sit down at the table. Explaining the whole universe thing and the concept of soulmates takes a while. After Steve's third fluttering interruption, Bucky gives him a considering look and sends him out to the cafeteria to find juice for everyone. 

"I'm good, I don't need juice," Clint starts, but Steve is already out the door. 

Bucky smiles wryly. "Yeah, me neither, but I was gonna snap if he kept hovering. I love him like he was my own blood, but Jesus Christ, I'm amazed he didn't melt that iceberg he was in just from fidgeting." 

Clint smiles vaguely, still hung up on "like he was my own blood." So are they not...?

Bucky lets out a long breath, seems to recenter himself. "So, okay, you don't have a pack designation, but you do have these... soul words, right? And you think _I'm_ somehow your..." Bucky waves his fingers vaguely, clearly not sold on this idea. 

"I know it sounds weird in this... in your... universe? I guess?" Hell, Clint doesn't even sound believable to his own ears when he puts it that way. "But it's normal where I'm from, and what I just felt... there's nothing else it could be." 

Bucky raises an eyebrow, dubiously. 

"Look, let me show you." Clint tugs his shirt over his head, swivelling in his seat to expose his back to Bucky. He waits nervously for a long moment, finally turning his head back over his shoulder to peek at Bucky. 

Bucky's eyes are fixed on Clint's back, a look of consternation on his face. "That's... my handwriting, yeah. But I don't have anything like that. And I definitely have a designation, I presented Alpha in 1932." 

Clint turns back around, clutching nervously at the t-shirt in his hands. Bucky's eyes dip down to Clint's torso and slowly come back up. Clint tries to file this away coolly with mixed results, his face reddening. "But you obviously felt something... unusual, right? Did it... uh, when you said my words, I could feel it on my back, the letters like... vibrate, kinda. It was almost like burning. You'd notice. You didn't have anything like that?" 

Bucky frowns. "Actually yeah, on my leg..." 

"Well, let's see?" It's Bucky's turn to redden, but he stands up and unties the laces of his drawstring scrubs, pulling them down his thighs with slow control at first and then dropping them abruptly in shock as he spots the black markings. 

There on his right thigh, in Clint's scratchy printing, is "Hey, no, it's not like that!" 

Bucky looks up, and Clint meets his eyes, smiles shyly. 

"Hi Soulmate. Nice to meet you."

=====

There's a clatter at the door, and Steve walks in, carrying a grocery bag overflowing with juiceboxes. 

"Hey Buck, they didn't have any juice, so I went across the street, but then I didn't know what kind you wanted, so-- why are your pants on the floor?" 

Bucky points at his soulmark. Steve drops the juice and comes to look closer, brushing his fingers over the letters. "When did that happen?" 

"Just now, apparently. Damn sure wasn't there when I got dressed this morning. Looks like your pal here really is my--" Bucky pauses for a moment. "--my soul... thing. Soulmate," he finishes, blushing, looking like saying the word soulmate in an actual conversation with an adult pains him.

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"Clint, by the way. My name is Clint." Clint extends a hand.

Bucky reaches out to shake it. "I'm, uh, James, but most people call me-- holy shit!"

As their hands touch, Bucky abruptly grips tighter, eyes wide, and looks up in surprise. Clint is sure he looks just as poleaxed; it's that feeling from when their bond settled, that connected feeling of rightness. It's dialed back a little, but that somehow makes it feel even more intimate, something secret just for them.

"Wow that's..."

"That's really..."

Bucky drops Clint's hand, scrubs his hands through his hair. "That'll... wow. That'll take some getting used to."

Steve is looking back and forth between them, but apparently decides not to ask. Probably he'll just grill Bucky later at their next supersoldier sleepover party or whatever.

Bucky shakes himself, seems to remember his pants are still on the floor, and snatches them up, turning around to tie the lace back up.

"So... before," he calls over his shoulder. "You said you can cure me? Is that a soul thing too?"

"No, and it's not me who can do it. Can maybe do it," Clint amends, not wanting to trip in to any further differences between his universe and this one. The wolf thing is weird enough. "If it's the same here as where I come from, there's a really, really, really smart lady in Wakanda, Shuri, she invents all kinds of science-y gadgets I am way too dumb to understand. She figured out how to de-trigger the Bucky back home. I'm betting she can do the same here. Assuming she's, y'know, here."

"Wakanda?" Steve looks over at Clint, a worried look on his face. "You didn't mention she was in Wakanda. We might have a problem. In our world, they're just a poor farming country."

Clint grins. "Maybe not."

=====

In the end they decide on just a small expedition to Wakanda, Steve, Natasha, and Clint in a quinjet. Bucky elects to stay in his lock-up, to Clint's disappointment.

"Aw, we'd be with you the whole time, I'm sure it would be fine!" Clint cajoles.

Bucky looks frustrated. "I _can't._ All it takes is one Hydra guy who slipped through the cracks to get near me. I don't know how many handlers even knew my triggers. It could have been printed in their freaking break rooms for all I know. I can't take that risk. I have enough blood on my hands already."

Clint can relate to that, at least. "Well... we'll be back as soon as we can. Hopefully with good news."

Bucky nods, not looking very hopeful but saying nothing.

Clint, about to leave, pauses a moment, standing before Bucky, teetering a bit on his walking cast. 

"Hey Bucky?" Bucky looks up. "I'm coming back. No matter what kind of news we find. I don't... I don't exactly know what this thing we have means, across universes, but if you'll let me, I'd... like to find out." 

Clint reaches out slowly, eyes on Bucky's, and as Bucky gives a small nod, Clint rests a hand tentatively on his exposed neck. Bucky shudders and leans in to it, eyes closing, bringing his right hand up to rest on Clint's. His hand is right where a mating bite would go, should go, and it feels really, really... something. It _belongs_.

"Yeah. Yeah, all right."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clint totally has Shuri's number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Goats, Huts, and Scrub" is my New York Times Bestselling non-fiction self-help book.

"Still not seeing anything but goats, huts and scrub," Natasha relates, sounding bored. She's been aloof to Clint ever since he arrived. He understands; she's always been slow to trust and here their history belongs to that other Clint, the one with the wife and three kids and chickens and stuff. Which, wow, still breaks his brain. But it stings, seeing her familiar face, knowing her every mood, reflexively offering her the wordless communication of body language and gesture and expression they'd accrued over more than a decade of partnership and having it just... bounce off of her like a stranger. Or worse, see her start to respond and then stiffen angrily, remembering this was not her Clint. He hated himself a bit for doing that to her, but he couldn't just stop being _a_ Clint, even if he couldn't be hers.

"Just... bring us in to land at their border. Walking distance but outside. Don't enter their airspace or weird shit will happen." Clint is used to being the pilot, but Tony vetoed the idea. "Not without seeing his driver's license. Flying license. Whatever. Not buying you nerds a new jet if he disappears back to soul-town mid-flight and it crashes." Steve, still vibrating with excitement at the idea of being able to spring Bucky from his self-imposed jail, didn't weigh in. Clint had shrugged; he knows Steve is practical enough to let Clint fly it if an emergency comes up. And while Clint doesn't understand... anything at all, really, about how he got here, he knows it had something to do with touching that thing in Shuri's lab. Nothing in a quinjet is going to zap him anywhere. Hopefully.

They land in a sere patch of grasslands dotted with scraggly trees on the Nigandan border with Wakanda, and step out of the jet. Half a dozen women and men with walking sticks are approaching their position. Correction: a half a dozen women and men with _spears_ are approaching. Natasha rolls her eyes; Steve frowns slightly; Clint has his hands in the air, trying to look harmless. With his leg in a cast he's probably doing a pretty good job of it, but he wants to be sure. He's seen what those innocuous-looking spears can do. Not to mention he has always had a healthy respect for palaeolithic weapons even when they aren't full of vibranium and science, thank you very much.

A woman at the head of the group, tall and stern in a yellow wrap dress, hair in elaborately braided locs, calls out in a language Clint doesn't understand but guesses is Xhosa, the most common of the various African tongues spoken in Wakanda. 

Shuri had taught Clint some good swears, but this is _really_ not the moment. "Sorry! Does anyone speak English?" 

"Does anyone speak English. We're in the exact centre of Africa and he wants to know if subsistence farmers with spears pointed at us speak English." Natasha addresses her comment to no one in particular, but her tone sounds almost fond. Maybe being a fuck-up will endear him to her here just like it did back home, even if starting from scratch is strange as hell.

"You are on Wakandan land. No visitors are permitted here. Take your craft and leave."

Natasha's lips separate slightly as both eyebrows rise minutely, the equivalent of complete dumbfounded stupor in someone else, Clint knows. "Looks like they speak English," he stage-whispers to her. She thwaps him on the shoulder with a finger. Aw, Nat still cares.

"Clint!" Steve is glaring at him. Oh, oops, right.

Clint calls out to the increasingly hostile-looking group. "We need to speak to Princess Shuri. Can you use your, uh, kimono beads?" Fuck, what is the right name? He wishes he'd paid more attention in Wakanda last time - he didn't know there was going to be a test.

Kimono is close enough, though. The woman rears back, stunned. She rattles off rapid instructions to a young man at the back of the group, who takes off at a run. "Wait here. We will return. Do not leave. There are watchers and we do not warn twice."

=====

It's not the spear-holders who return, or not the same ones, anyway. A ripple appears in the air fifty yards out and about the same high, and an advanced looking craft flies out, coming to a neat landing nearby. A tall man dressed in purple and black robes, somehow lush and restrained at the same time, steps out, flanked by a group of terrifying-looking bald, tattooed women with fancier-looking spears, red and gold uniforms, and an air of casual violence that makes Clint kind of jealous.

"You have unnerved our Border tribe, Avengers."

"Prince T'Challa," says Steve, bowing his head. Prince? What?

"I do not believe I have had the honour of meeting you, Captain America, nor your colleagues."

Steve is about to continue his polite greetings when Clint steps out. He calls out in a friendly voice: "Hey, cat-guy!"

T'Challa looks at Clint sharply. The guard closest to him steps toward Clint menacingly, but T'Challa waves her back. "Cat... guy."

Clint gulps. "You know, because of the..." He makes vague clawing gestures in the air and meows. "black panther thing?"

T'Challa's face is impassive, but his full attention is on Clint now. "Well, Hawkguy, it seems that we have more to discuss than I might have thought."

Clint frowns. "It's not Hawkguy, it's Hawk-- okay, you know what, I earned that." 

T'Challa's face is stern, but his eyes twinkle. "I had heard you were retired?"

"Oh, not me, that was the other Hawkeye."

"Ms. Bishop?"

"Uh, no. The... other, _other_ Hawkeye." Steve shoots him an impatient look. Right. Focus. "Anyway, I don't mean to blow your cover, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't important, but we need Shuri's help to save our friend."

T'Challa looks dubious. "It is not our way to interfere in the world outside. My father does not wish to be drawn in to the squabbles of other lands. He values the peace we have achieved above all else." He pauses. "But I will admit, the mystery that you present has intrigued me. I think I can at least arrange an audience for you to make your request. But you must promise never to reveal what you see here."

His head guard stands more menacingly somehow, the implied consequences clear. Clint's as queer as the next guy, assuming the next guy really, really likes to fuck men, but damn. That's hot. If in a somewhat abstract way. Also terrifying. In a considerably less abstract way. Clint shrinks back behind Steve a bit.

"You have our word, your majesty," Steve replies smoothly.

"Then come."

They board the Wakandan ship and sit where the guard directs them. Clint hears a muttered "Cat guy. Hmm." from one of them - in English, so he must have been meant to hear - and hunches his shoulders in nervously. Right. No more cat guy teasing. Talking to people he should be friends with but who are strangers here never stops being weird.

=====

It turns out having an audience with a man you remember as _dead_ is even weirder. A totally alive, not even a little dead King T'Chaka receives them, with T'Challa present only as an observer and counsellor, along with his lady mother Ramonda. Clint keeps almost addressing himself to the wrong person.

When they reach the part of their explanations that involve Clint coming from another _universe_ \- and it having something to do with Shuri - T'Chaka closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Bast grant me the wisdom to understand that girl." he says, and orders that food and drink be brought, "For," he says "it is clear that this will be no swift matter."

When at long last the whole sordid tale has been explained, T'Chaka takes on a solemn look and addresses Steve. 

"Captain. Your tale is extraordinary, and it is true that our technology is more advanced than is generally given to be understood." Well there's an understatement, thinks Clint. "But we cannot make an exception to our policy. I owe it to my people to uphold our legacy of peace, and even the smallest crack in our veil of seclusion puts us all at risk. I know you will understand how difficult I find it to refuse you."

Steve's lips grow white where he presses them together, but he says nothing, so Clint is surprised when Natasha swats him, shouting "Steve! Stop that!"

Steve, chastened, excuses himself from the room for "a moment of air."

Clint leans over to Natasha while Steve takes his leave with a few of the guards. "Uh, Nat? What did I just miss?"

Natasha looks at him in surprise, then relaxes her face as she seems to remember why Clint is so clueless. Well, why in this specific case. In a low voice, she explains. "Steve just stunk up the room with enough Alpha pheromone to enrage a sloth on quaaludes. It's not a totally voluntary thing, but you're supposed to exercise more control over it. It was not a great move in front of a foreign head of state we're asking a favour from."

Oh. Wolf stuff. Yikes. Clint is suddenly glad his regular old nose gets to skip class on this; it sounds way too complicated. And stinky. At least he knows he isn't emitting his thoughts in smell form. Wait, _does_ he know that? Can their super-noses read him like a book even if he's not a... designated driver or whatever it was? He really needs a crash course in navigating werewolf-land after all this is sorted out.

Natasha tries to sweep up the mess. "Your majesties. Please forgive my colleague. This is an emotional topic for him; the man involved is his lifelong best friend. Of course we will respect your position."

T'Chaka nods graciously.

Clint is suddenly struck by a perverse suspicion. "It was a long shot anyway. This universe's Shuri might not even be able to find the solution."

There is a crash from the hallway, and a door in the back corner is flung open. A young woman with twin buns and a fierce expression walks in. "That's not true! I can do anything another me can, I am certain of it!"

T'Challa, schooling his face, looks over at Clint. "Now I see that you truly do know my sister, Hawkeye." 

Clint grins.

King T'Chaka is bickering with Shuri in rapid Xhosa. Shuri stamps her feet. T'Chaka waves his arms. Shuri crosses hers and fumes. Ramonda steps over between them and whistles sharply. They both stop speaking and look at her sheepishly. "Surely we can discuss this more calmly, my husband, my daughter. It would not do to discommode our guests." She looks at the table pointedly, and everyone sits back down, Shuri taking Steve's spot.

"You were told not to attend this meeting, daughter." T'Chaka says in a carefully metered voice.

"You didn't say how far away I had to be." Shuri says, petulant.

"You know perfectly well that--" Ramonda places a soft hand on T'Chaka's shoulder and he trails off.

Natasha takes the opportunity to chime in. "Your highness, please consider - we ask this not just for the sake of Sergeant Barnes, but to neutralize a threat. If he were to become the puppet of Hydra again, Wakanda would be just as much at risk of an attack as anyone."

King T'Chaka snorts. "They could try. But no "Hydra" has ever penetrated our society or provoked us to battle, and as long as I am king, none ever shall. Our borders have been successfully hidden for centuries, and we have technological safeguards that I cannot describe to you which are more than sufficient to protect us."

"Then what would the risk be to helping us? Your safeguards would protect you, would they not?"

T'Chaka shakes his head. "It is out of the question."

Pleading and defiance war in Shuri's voice. "Father! Can't I just _look_ at the problem? I--" 

"No! I will not allow it." T'Chaka smacks a hand down on the table for emphasis. Shuri looks furious but holds her tongue.

Clint came all this way for his soulmate; he's not going to give up now. "King T'Chaka. You know that in my universe, it was your son who decided to help Sergeant Barnes." That had been awkward to explain. Nothing like inviting a guy to his own funeral. Steve had done a good job, though - Clint guessed he could relate. "When he did, it wasn't as a favour to an ally, and it wasn't a strategic move to neutralize a threat. He decided to help out of simple compassion for a man who was suffering."

T'Chaka is silent for a long moment, thumb stroking idly at a large ring on one finger. Eventually he looks up.

"It sounds like my son is a very wise king."

Clint looks up, hope springing in his heart suddenly. King T'Chaka has one hand on T'Challa's shoulder, one hand holding Shuri's across the table, a wistful, proud look on his face.

"You may try, Shuri."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting Steve to leave (is hard to do)

Steve and Natasha are escorted back to the Quinjet to go fetch Bucky. Clint stays partly to help get Shuri up to speed, and partly because his leg is in agony at this point after so much walking around. He can almost hear the exasperated sighs of the doctors in medical at the Tower; he's certainly heard their "Don't overdo it!" post-injury speech enough times.

Shuri gets side-tracked by hearing that it was something in her lab that sent Clint to this universe. She rapidly walks over to a machine in one corner - oh fuck, yeah, that's the one - and deactivates it. 

"Don't worry, I wasn't gonna touch it. I learned my lesson." Clint taps his cast, immediately regretting it as pain shoots through his leg.

"Well, good. It is a miracle you survived the passage once."

Clint blinks. "It is?"

"Yes. You were very fortunate you arrived above-ground. It was much more likely that you would appear in superposition with some solid object, killing you instantly, or perhaps slowly and painfully, depending on the degree of overlap." She hums thoughtfully. "Or it could cause an explosion. I haven't been able to test it, naturally."

Clint pales even paler. He could probably bleach clothing at this point.

"It's interesting you appeared close to your counterpart in this universe instead of in Wakanda, where your exposure was. There must be some link betw-" 

Clint winces involuntarily as he steps down wrong somehow, and Shuri stops and scrutinizes him. "Is that bothering you? We can take care of it if you like."

"What?"

"Your leg. Is it bothering you?"

"Uh. Yeah. It's broken." Clint licks his lips. "What um. What do you mean by "take care of it," exactly?"

Shuri laughs. "Heal the fracture, silly. Come, I will call a doctor, sit, sit."

He does, and she does, and in short order he is lying on a bed in what looks like a CT scanner multiplied by Star Trek. He does a double-take when the doctor arrives - it's the same woman who defrosted Bucky back home. The bed passes through the machine a few times, which buzzes and bathes his leg in white light, and his leg does indeed start to feel better. Shuri approaches him with a torch and starts cutting in to his cast. "Relax!" she says, grinning impishly.

Clint does not relax. Only the knowledge that Shuri can make _really_ good prosthetics keeps him from bolting. But the cast comes off neatly without Shuri accidentally cutting any limbs off, and his leg is still bruised and a bit swollen but feels whole again. He stands on it tentatively at the doctor's behest, and it feels... fine.

"Do gentle walking for the next few days, don't overdo it," she says. Apparently doctors everywhere say that. It's like they've never met him. 

=====

It doesn't take long to explain to Shuri the very little he understood from the explanation he had heard about Bucky's cure, but she is excited by it, immediately darting off to a console to start typing madly. Clint decides this is a good sign and takes a seat a careful distance away from anything even vaguely device-like. He's had enough universe-hopping for the time being, thanks. God knows what would have happened if he had poked the Frog Remixer.

The bone-mo-tron procedure, or whatever it's actually called, must have taken longer than Clint realized, because it's only an hour or so later when Steve arrives with Bucky.

"Sergeant Barnes! Welcome, welcome." Shuri is bouncing a bit. She's a Tigger in any universe when there's a juicy problem to solve. 

Bucky says "Hi" to her nervously, and looks over at Clint and gives a small wave. Steve has a big hand on Bucky's shoulder, in reassurance or maybe to keep him from running away; Bucky looks very uncertain about the whole situation.

Shuri, cheerfully oblivious - or more likely, acutely aware and choosing to ignore it, not much gets past her - takes one of Bucky's hands and leads him over to a chair.

"For today it's very simple! I need to scan your head once - it is painless, nothing will touch you. Then my work begins. I will need you to remain close by, but I expect it may be a few weeks before we can expect progress." Well that's cheeky! Clint had told her that other-universe Shuri took _seven months._ But maybe knowing it's possible - and pure competitive ferocity - can move up the timeline a bit.

Shuri peels Steve's hand off of Bucky, turns to face a console, and blue light bathes Bucky for a moment, then vanishes.

"All right, that's it for now! If you go out to the hall, Okoye will direct you to rooms. Okoye is the one--"

"I know her," puts in Clint.

"Ah, yes, of course, you would."

Clint turns to collect Steve & Bucky, but finds them having a hushed argument.

"...Stevie, we don't know how long this is gonna take. You've got stuff you need to do."

"Buck, it can wait! Nothing's more important to me, you know that."

"What are you gonna do here, though? I make it two days of sittin' on your thumbs here before you go nuts and start buggin' her for updates and stinking up the place with Antsy Alpha. Go back home, I'll be fine. We can do that video thing and talk."

"I'm not leaving you alone here!"

Clint waves a hand. "I can stay." Steve and Bucky look over at him. "I mean, your Clint retired, right? You don't need me to be Avengering, I'd just be someone who needed babysitting in the tower. But I know Wakanda a bit. I can be Bucky's tour guide maybe while he waits?" And get to know my Soulmate, he adds silently.

Bucky nods like it's settled. "See? There you go. You won't be leaving me alone. Zero aloneness. And you can punch things to your heart's content in New York to pass the time. You do that here and it'll be an international incident or somethin'."

Steve's stubborn face cracks a smile at this, then earnests up again. "You sure, Buck?"

Bucky rolls his eyes. "I'll be fine, Steve. This was your brilliant idea, remember? Now you gotta sit back and let _your own plan_ work." 

Ooooh, cold. Bucky is an evil mastermind.

And it works: Steve's chin is set again, but this time looking determined to argue with Bucky if he _doesn't_ let Steve go. Clint needs to take _notes_ on this.

They have a long, back-patting hug, and Steve heads out. 

Bucky turns to Clint and frowns. "Wasn't your leg broken this morning?"

=====

Okoye shows them to a palatial suite, which, okay, they're in a palace, so. Clint flashes Okoye his best friendly smile, suitable for grandmothers and job interviews and meeting your boyfriend's parents. She looks sternly back at him as if he were a raccoon that had made its way inside: annoying, but not really a threat. Soooo, basically the same relationship they had back home. He'd always gotten along best with Shuri, who is down for shenanigans 24/7. And he had been starting to be friends with T'Challa, after finally realizing that his solemn façade hid a deeply mischievous soul, if one weighed down by the responsibilities of kingship. But if you got T'Challa on board with something, you were golden - his straight face was _legendary_. Clint's dream was to one day pit Natasha against T'Challa in a prank war.

There are two bedrooms, a bathroom with a few fixtures whose purpose Clint can't even decipher but which look decadent, a small kitchen with a table and two chairs on the edge of a huge open sitting area, couches arranged to face a wall of windows looking on a glorious West-facing view. Wakanda doesn't have a bad view anywhere, but watching the sunset from the heights of Birnin Zana is something special.

It's been a long, long day, and they're both ready to collapse in bed. Bucky pauses for a moment on the threshold of his room. 

"Hey, Clint?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for staying."

"Hey, nowhere I'd rather be."

Bucky looks around the room, out the big windows. "Yeah, this is a pretty high-toned establishment."

Clint walks over. "Well yeah, but..." He reaches out a hand, palm up. "That's not what I meant."

Bucky looks down at the hand, up at Clint, and down again. He presses his hand to Clint's as if to shake, and-- oh, shit, all the soppy Hallmark poetry for Soulmate Day that Clint has grouched at every February he can remember suddenly seems inadequate, because this is -- this is -- 

Bucky pulls away first, eyes wide, looking at his hand like it might sprout flowers. "Huh."

"You said it. Uh, so," Clint's hand is behind his neck, his eyes looking at the ceiling. "Talk tomorrow?"

Bucky shakes himself, puts his hand down. "Uh. Yeah. Yeah, talk tomorrow." 

Clint nods, awkwardly shuffles towards his bedroom, looking back a few times. Bucky stands there, not even trying to hide his slightly stunned stare, right up until Clint closes his door.

Clint leans back against the closed door and blows out a long breath. Hooboy. He has _no idea_ what he is doing here. How is it that he's in another _universe_ , waiting for a mad scientist to come up with experimental brain surgery, and the weirdest thing in his life is a new crush?

Okay, an old crush. Transferred to an alternate dimension doppelgänger who is his soulmate across time and space and maybe kind of a wolf. 

When he puts it that way, Clint feels a little better about freaking out a little.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Hotel Wakandafornia!
> 
> There is no pink champagne on ice. Why are you even asking that.

In the morning they find breakfast waiting for them in their kitchen - nice! - and a pile of packages, which turn out to be from Steve. There's a suitcase full of clothes for Bucky, with some sketches tucked in a side pocket. Bucky pulls them out and smiles. Clint can see Steve - both large and small versions - and Bucky, both alone and with other people Clint doesn't recognize, maybe Bucky's family, one sketch that is unmistakably the Howling Commandos, and one of the Brooklyn bridge.

For Clint there's another, smaller suitcase and a duffle bag. There's a note safety-pinned to the suitcase:

     Hey Clint! 

     I knew Steve would pick out clothes that suck, so I did a little shopping  
     for you. Me. Whatever. This is weird, right? Super weird? Anyway.  
     The duffle bag has some key accessories for any outfit. Heh. 

     Love, Clint.

Accessories? Clint opens the bag. Inside is a bow case; two full quivers, hip and back, plus another bundle of arrows; one of his armoured vests; some coiled spare strings and a tube of string wax; and a pair of his favourite kind of tabs. He cracks open the case, and oh, she's a beaut. This has to have been Farmer Clint's second-best bow, if his tastes run along the same lines as Clint's - and they must, judging by the loving wear on the grip. Clint feels a bit weepy for a moment. Despite all the familiar faces here, he's felt so alone, so extraneous, since he arrived. But here's something just for him, from someone who cares. Even if it is himself. 

Yup. Super weird is right.

Eagerly, he turns next to the suitcase, and laughs happily when he opens it. Purple briefs, one pair of Hawkeye boxers - that's as a joke, he knows, no one who falls off buildings as often as Clint does wears boxers - purple socks, three pairs of jeans, a couple pairs of shorts and sweats, five purple t-shirts, and a big cozy purple hoodie. Hell yeah.

"I sense a theme." Bucky is leaning against the island in the kitchen, hiding a smile behind a mug of coffee.

"Of course! The Amazing Hawkeye has an image to uphold, man."

"The Amazing Hawkeye, is it?"

"Well, that's what they called me in the circus. Just Hawkeye once I became an Avenger. And just Clint Barton in between when I was with SHIELD."

A shadow passes over Bucky's face at the mention of SHIELD, but he doesn't remark on it. "Barton, huh?"

"Yeah but I mean, call me Clint obviously, we're freaking soulmates." Clint pauses, brain catching up. "Wait, did you... you don't know the other me? This universe's me?"

"Never met the guy. Steve says he's nice. Heck of a shot. Maybe as good as me."

"Maybe?! Maybe as--" Clint cuts off, noticing Bucky's shit-eating grin. "Asshole."

Bucky shrugs. "Everyone needs a hobby. Me, I'm an asshole."

Clint smiles back. "I bet you _excel_ at your hobby, buddy." He takes a sip of coffee. Then a few more sips, wow, this is amazing coffee. Clint will drink just about anything hot and liquid that purports to be caffeinated, but that doesn't mean he doesn't _appreciate_ the good stuff. "That might make things easier, actually. You not knowing him. Nothing to like, unlearn?"

Bucky nods. "Makes sense. Are you guys that different, though?"

Clint shrugs. "We're a lot alike, obviously." He waves at the suitcase. "But there are some major things, yeah. I mean first of all, what universe we're from."

Bucky rolls his eyes. 

"Heh. And um, he has a wife and three kids? And I'm gay and definitely available. Uh. Not, uh. Not seeing anyone." Smooth, Clint, smooth. "And I'm not retired, back home. I was still out fighting crime."

"In purple."

"Yup. Fighting crime in purple. Oh! No, wait! I was kind of... well technically I was on the supply side of crime. I mean, too, not like, exclusively, I wasn't Evil Clint."

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, there was this whole... accord thing. And Cap and me and Wanda and Ant-Guy and Sam were uh, kind of international fugitives."

Bucky's other eyebrow joins the first. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised about Steve, man's been looking for trouble since he learned to talk. I don't think I know all those other people. I met Sam once, he seems like a good guy." He sips his coffee thoughtfully. "So what dastardly heist were you all on the lam for?"

"Well, for one, we refused to sign papers saying we would only use our powers under the control of a government committee."

Bucky cringes. "Steve musta blown his top at that one."

"Yeah, that's... maybe even underselling it a bit."

"Heh. So that's one. What's two? It sounds like there's a two."

"Uh, right. Well two was you."

"Me?"

"We were hiding you. Well first you were hiding you, for like two years after the DC thing - did, uh, did DC happen here? Bridge, helicarriers, river?"

Bucky nods grimly, looking at the floor.

Real sensitive there, Clint. "Okay. Right. So two years after that, Steve found you, but like, only five minutes ahead of the cops, and then you were all arrested and stuff because someone framed you for--" 

Clint stops himself before saying "Killing King T'Chaka." Maybe that's not the best topic of conversation with the Dora Milaje outside the door. 

"--ah, for something you didn't do, but then there was this nutbar fake psychiatrist who snuck in to prison and uh, like activated you? So he could send you against Tony, but not directly, it was super confusing. And things got really messy but Steve clonged you on the head and you were yourself again..." 

Bucky is looking paler and paler as Clint babbles on. Fuck. Cut to the chase, Clint.

"Uh. Long story short, the nutbar was picked up and sent to prison, Steve took you here to try to get cured - you made friends with T'Challa during the whole rampage thing? After he was done trying to kill you--"

"Trying to kill m-- okay, no, go on."

"Uh, yeah, so Steve brought you here to see what Shuri could do, and then went to go rescue me and the others, 'cause we were in this bogus underwater super-prison for helping you escape and being awesome renegades and stuff, and... that's about it. We kept up the crime fighting thing on the down-low to pass the time while you were frozen here--"

"While I WHAT?"

"Oh. Uh. You wanted to be frozen here. In cryo. So you wouldn't be able to hurt anyone." Clint is regretting mentioning that part now. Clint is _very much_ regretting this.

Bucky sucks in air through his teeth. "I didn't know they could... I didn't know that was an option." Bucky looks troubled. "Maybe I. Maybe I should." He scrubs a hand through his hair, starting to tremble a bit.

" **NO.** " 

Oops, that came out a little louder than Clint intended. The door to the suite opens and a Dora Milaje pokes a head in. 

"Is everything all right, gentlemen?"

"Yeah! Fine! We're fine! Totally fine!" Clint is very chill. The chillest.

The Dora looks skeptical but also bored. "Then I apologize for the interruption," she offers half-heartedly and closes the door again.

Clint looks back over at Bucky. "But seriously. NO. It was a dumb idea in my universe and it's a dumb idea in this one. You're not going to hurt anyone."

"What about that guy you mentioned? He's in jail in your universe, but he must be out there in this one, 'cause all that stuff didn't happen here. He's out there _with my words._ " Bucky's hands are clenched in to tight fists, his eyes looking down. "This is _exactly_ why I wanted to be locked up before."

"Yeah. He might be. Or some other Hydra asshole ex-handler might be out there plotting to drive you around like a meat car. But Bucky." Clint reaches over, tentatively, and lifts Bucky's chin up. Bucky goes along with it, maybe out of hope, maybe just distracted by the weird tingle thing that keeps happening when they touch skin to skin. "Bucky, they're OUT there. As in, outside of Wakanda. This is the most secure place on the planet. There's a shield over the whole fucking country. Their weapons are lightyears ahead of anything else on earth. Walking around free in here, you're safer from interference than you were locked up in New York. Like, did you miss the part in my story where that guy broke in to a top security prison to get at you?"

Bucky has gone back to making studious eye contact with his knees, but isn't objecting, at least.

"The only thing that being frozen would change, is that if they somehow breached Wakanda's security - which would be the first breach ever, and I kind of doubt the disorganized dregs of Hydra are the guys to do that - the ONLY thing that being frozen would change is that you would be helpless to fight back against being taken."

Bucky sits up at that and looks sharply at Clint. Hah! Point to Barton! They stare at each other for a long moment. Eventually Bucky nods and looks away. Clint lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Good. Good. He _needs_ Bucky to stay awake. He is not sitting here alone for seven months waiting to... waiting.

"Okay, that was way too heavy for breakfast chat. I'm gonna go have a shower."

Bucky offers him a one-sided smile and a sloppy salute and goes back to eating breakfast.

=====

There are seven showerheads. God he loves this place.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo much talking.

After breakfast, they head off to see if Shuri needs them. The bored Dora guard from earlier sighs and begins to lead the way, but evidently she is there to play tour guide to the white boys rather than guard the palace from them, because when Clint mentions that he knows the way and can navigate the palace on his own, she smiles hugely, waves, and disappears down the hall. Clint thinks she might have started to skip if they weren't there to see.

Shuri is surrounded by 5 different screens displaying text and code in several character sets, and a sixth showing a model of what Clint assumes is Bucky's brain. Yikes. She shoos them out, saying she'll call them when she's ready, although she does stop long enough to fish out two kimoyo bracelets from a drawer and activate them. "Are you familiar with them, Hawkeye?" "Yup!" Ish! "Good, good, you can teach Sergeant Barnes while I get back to work." 

They return to their quarters, Clint gives Bucky a crash course in the parts of the kimoyo beads he remembers from before - how to call for emergency help on the health bead, how to place a holo-call to someone in Wakanda, how to pull up a simple local map. He thinks there might be a way to like, surf the net on the communication bead too, but he's afraid to mess with it too much. Or to say "surf the net" in front of Shuri unironically. He notes that their bracelets only have three beads each compared to the dozen or so on Shuri's own wrist. He probably doesn't want to know what hers do. He's gotten in to enough trouble already with stuff from her lab.

========

A few days later, an antsy Clint suggests an afternoon walk in the palace gardens. He has like eight million things he wants to ask Bucky that he just... hasn't. Too full of nervous energy, or scaredy-cat points, or whatever it is that makes him choke every time. Hopefully a walk will bring the chill a bit. If not, well, at least the palace gardens are very, very pretty.

The gardens are as gorgeous as he remembers, a riot of colourful flowers, beautiful, irritating birds yelling at them, little bridges and footpaths and arbors. Scrublands and baobabs are interspersed with displays of flora from around the world, with scenic outlooks and intimate nooks and everything in between. There are _multiple grottos_. The kimoyo beads helpfully suggest a 10km loop. That should be good for a nice long, uh, interrogation.

Bucky is silent for the first ten minutes or so, sometimes closing his eyes and turning his face to the sun. Clint wonders suddenly how long he had spent locked up in that New York facility. A lot of things obviously went down differently here after DC - is this the first real sunshine he's been out in since then? Shit.

Eventually Clint works up his nerve. "Hey, so. Can I ask you some things about... the... designation stuff? I don't know if that's rude to talk about or what, but I'm so confused. I mean, I read a pamphlet at the tower with the basics, but." 

Bucky laughs. Clint looks miserable. "Sorry, sorry! You're just a little old to be getting the birds and the bees talk." 

Clint snickers at that, mollified.

"It's not rude, you just maybe wouldn't bring it up at a fancy dinner I guess? I mean, depending on what you want to ask. Don't ask an omega you just met what makes 'em slick, now _that_ would be rude." 

"Oh man, I'm still wrapping my head around the idea of omegas. Of male omegas, I guess. I know the me who's from here _is_ one, but like, back home men don't have babies. We're like your betas I guess? I'm kind of scared to find out how that's even possible." 

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Uh, the same way women do? They have sex, the baby grows in their womb and then they give birth." 

"Wait, so do the guy omegas have vaginas and stuff?" And stuff. Clint feels like he is 9 again, getting a crude locker-room description of lady-parts from a condescending Barney behind a circus tent.

"What? No. Why would... just no." 

"So where's the... how..." 

Bucky takes pity on him. "Anal sex, and there's an opening in the colon that's normally a closed valve, but tissue around it swells during heat and gives access to the cervix. Or constricts? I forget which, but anyway, it's open in heat and not at other times." 

In the _colon?_ Clint grimaces. "Doesn't that lead to a lot of infections?" 

"Uh. Sometimes I guess? I'm an unmated alpha, I don't exactly spend a lot of time in the omega hygiene aisle. But I don't think it's that common."

"What about lady alphas? Do they give birth?" Yup, age 9. Or maybe 13, when he peeked in someone else's trailer accidentally on purpose and got some real-life adjustments to his mental images.

"What? No! Omegas do that. Or betas, but that's rare. Female alphas rut just like guys, their clit engorges and knots." 

Their... clit. Knots. Clint thinks back to the diagrams from the booklet he'd read, and the _size_ of the knot compared to... other anatomy. Well, you'd never have trouble finding it, he supposes. Wow.

"So the designation means more than the gender I guess?" 

"Mm, not really, people tend to have preferences for both things."

"What about you? You go with female omegas or what?" Shit, shit, calm down, Sergeant Subtle. 

Bucky looks him in the eye. "No, not really. I'm mostly in to guys. As for designation, well, I'm tri. Or," he pauses, looking Clint up and down, "maybe I should say pan."

Clint reddens but can't help but look pleased. He does manage to restrain himself from pumping his arm and yelling YES! and counts that as a win. Baby steps. 

He walks on in a floaty happy place for a spell, until Bucky, looking at him sideways and smiling indulgently, asks: "Anything else you're curious about?"

"Oh! Uh. Yeah, actually. Rut, what's... that... like? What um, what is it? I mean is that just what sex is called, or..?"

"No, no, you can have sex outside of rut. Rut, well, basically you get horny for 3 or 4 days. Really, really horny. It's the time when you're the most fertile, and the only time you pop a knot - between ruts alphas have sex just like betas do. Most people take the week off work and hole up with a partner if they have one. If you don't, then you grit your teeth and tough it out with your hand and a dozen boxes of tissues and some sad sack condolence ice cream. You smell SUPER intense, and you're pretty... uninhibited... so it's rude as hell to go out during rut unless it's an emergency, because you stink and you'll frighten unbonded omegas. There are some pretty serious laws about that. Or there used to be, I'm not totally up to speed on that shit in the future. Uhhh, what else. It happens twice a year on its own, more often in between if you spend a lot of time around someone unbonded who's in heat, or around your own bondmate when they're in heat." 

Clint's eyes have glazed over during this lengthy disquisition, stuck on the idea of being holed up with a very horny Bucky for a week. He shakes himself and runs the last sentence over in his mind.

"Hang on, bonds? I thought there weren't bonds here. I distinctly remember being thoroughly mocked by Tony when I told him about soul bonds."

"Not soul bonds, mating bonds. Also just because Tony mocks you about something doesn't mean it's not real."

"...fair point. So this world's bonds are just like, getting married." 

"Oh hell no-- I mean, a lot of people who bond also get married, but totally separate thing. Marriage is more for like, legal stuff or church stuff. The bond is a permanent, physical change." 

"So what, you have sex and you're bonded?! That seems kind of harsh." Clint imagines being permanently yoked to the first person his idiot teenaged self had banged and shudders.

"No, it's more than that, it takes more than sex. Technically it doesn't have to happen during sex at all, but that's the usual way, the endorphins make it hurt less, supposedly." 

"Hurt less?! The hell?" 

"Well there's a bite. You seal the bond by biting your mate's neck over the scent glands, and they bite you back." 

"Oh my god, you're not werewolves, you're vampires. Wolfpires." 

Bucky rolls his eyes. "You don't like, suck their blood, it's just a little bite. You break the skin and that's it, that's all it takes to trigger it."

"Trigger what? Dracula's return?"

Bucky looks at Clint.

Clint looks at Bucky.

Clint breaks first and makes a sad puppydog face. Bucky snorts and continues. 

"Trigger the bond. The connection. Once the bite is reciprocated, you're permanently bound. You start to smell a bit like your mate, and you smell... mated. Like people can tell you're mated, and if they know your partner's scent, they can tell to who. And you have kind of a sense of them, you know what direction they're in, roughly what they're feeling if it's a really intense emotion, that kind of thing."

"What if you change your mind later?" Clint pictures for a moment how much worse things might have been for his mom if his father could sense where she was at all times. He shivers.

"Well, you just... don't be together any more. The sense of the other person fades a bit, supposedly, the longer you're estranged from them. But the bond never completely breaks, the mark stays, and you can't make a new bond with someone else. You can have a new relationship, you can have children with someone else, just no bond."

Clint digests this for a moment. "So what about you? Are you mated to anyone?" 

"Hm? No. You'd see a mating mark here" Bucky indicates the side of his neck. "if I were. They look like, well, a bite mark. Except they never fade after they heal up." 

"So you and Steve aren't mates?" 

"Steve?! Jesus Christ! He's like my brother practically. Oh my god no, we'd murder each other in like two weeks if we were mates. He's pack, for sure, take a bullet for the guy, but no. Definitely not." 

"Oh, okay. Huh." 

Bucky stops walking for a moment, eyes widening. "Wait, are you askin' because we're together in your world?!" 

"Yup." 

Bucky sits down heavily, just sits down in the middle of the path. "Jesus. Christ. On a cracker."

Clint is not giggling. He's not.

Bucky shoots him a poisonous look. "Well, we're really not together here. Really, really, really, really not. At all. With the being together. Jesus Fucking Christ."

Clint is trying not to flush and failing but THIS IS KIND OF GREAT NEWS.

Bucky slowly gets up, dusts himself off - Clint tries not to stare at his ass too obviously as this happens, but _damn_ \- and resumes walking. "So! Speaking of _literally anything else_. What about the kind of bonds where you're from? What does..." he gestures at his leg, at the spot where his Words appeared when Clint spoke them. "What does this mean? Does that make us mates now?" 

Now Clint is definitely red, rapidly approaching purple, which doesn't make him as happy as you might think. "Um. Not necessarily? Well it makes us soulmates, yes, we're that kind of mate, but not. I mean. It _is_ really common for soulmates to uh, regular mate, though. But no, it just means you're compatible. Really compatible. Sometimes it's platonic, and your soulmate is just your best friend. Some religious people think the soul marks are from the devil, and they avoid their soulmate after they meet. And then some religions say you can _only_ marry your soulmate, that it's a sin to ignore God's plan for you. But a lot of folks date people who aren't their soulmate, figuring hey, what if I don't meet them until I'm like seventy-five? Gotta live your life, right? But I'd say the majority don't go for a serious relationship until they Meet their soulmate, 'cause odds are they're meant to be romantic together." 

"How do they know they'll even meet their soulmate?" 

"It just... happens. There's never been an exception, at least not that I ever heard of. Everyone with a mark eventually meets their soulmate. It might be like, ten seconds before you die, but it'll happen." 

Bucky looks non-plussed. "Not even one exception ever? How is that even possible?" 

"I dunno. God? The cosmos? Quantum entangle-whoosis? There are whole university departments about soul bond metaphysics bullshit and they don't know either. It's like wondering why anything exists at all, why there isn't just nothing. You just get a headache if you think about it too hard." 

"What about, I don't know, Deaf people? Or babies who die before they're old enough to speak? That has to happen sometimes, right?" 

"Well, yeah. You can have a mark in any language - there are markings for sign language, they're super cool looking. And not everyone has a mark. Something like 96% of people do, I think? If you're born markless, your parents freak out because suddenly the chances of you dying young go WAY up. You basically can't get health insurance or life insurance from anyone. They won't let you in the army without a mark because they don't want to waste money training someone who's just gonna die on them. Which is just silly, because there are plenty of markless who have lived to a ripe old age, just no soul mate. But that's people for you."

Bucky chews on this for a moment. "Your world is so weird."

"Says the wolfpire."

Bucky smirks, apparently just deciding to own the wolfpire thing. "So... obviously you weren't soulmated to anyone before you met me. Were you seeing anyone back home?" 

Clint tamps down the little spark of excitement this question ignites. Or tries to.

"Nah. Honestly, I was pretty convinced romance wasn't worth it. My parents were soulmates, but it didn't stop my dad from being an asshole and beating my mom all the time. Until he drunk-drove them in to a telephone pole."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. And then my words... you've got to understand, I spent my whole life thinking that when I met my soulmate, they were instantly going to reject me. "You know my words? Get the fuck away from me!" I mean, how could that be anything but awful?"

Bucky looks downcast at this. Clint goes on, looking over with a reassuring smile. 

"I never thought it would be someone who didn't know what soul words were. Who wasn't talking about that kind of word. Who would... who would go walking in the gardens of Wakanda with me." Clint bumps Bucky's side with an elbow. "This isn't what I ever pictured. Even if this is all... if you're not... I mean. If we're just friends? That's still so much more than I ever hoped for."

They walk on in thoughtful, comfortable silence for a while, then Bucky stops, waits for Clint to realize he's stopped and turn around, and takes hold of Clint's hands, looking down at them. Bucky's hands are so nice, the one warm and dry and callused, the other smooth and cool and surprisingly gentle.

"So now that you have that. Now that we're friends. _Do_ you want more?" Head still tucked down, he looks up at Clint, shy and intent all at once. Clint grips Bucky's hands tightly, only partly to hide how they're shaking. 

"Actually," he whispers, "I kind of do." 

Bucky looks up and frees his left hand to stroke Clint's cheek softly, so softly, and cocks an eyebrow.

"What's this "kind of" shit?" 

Clint chokes out a laugh and reaches over to cup Bucky's cheek in one rough hand. Bucky leans in to the touch, his eyes closing. 

"Okay, a lot. Really really a lot. I do. Want that." Clint knows he used to know how sentences work, but Bucky is really close to him and really, _really_ pretty and is he going to open those amazing grey-blue eyes again because Clint suddenly needs them like water, and--

Bucky, shaking with suppressed laughter, licks Clint's palm. 

"Bleuaeghgh!" Clint sputters. "Gross!" 

Bucky laughs and frames Clint's face with both hands and kisses him.

Oh thank god, thinks Clint, and then doesn't think anything but THERE YOU ARE for a long while. Kissing your soul mate is... he thought touching was intense, had started to get used to the fizzy tingle of casual contact. But this. It's that fizz amped up and multiplied and raised to the power of Bucky, and, and _reflected_ , because he can feel Bucky's enjoyment of the kiss, can feel Bucky enjoying _his_ enjoyment of the kiss. It's like an elevator with mirror walls, a thousand Clints and Buckys lined up off to the horizon, and all of them are A+ Yes Please enjoying this.

Eventually they break for breath, wide eyes meeting, feeling happy and surprised and kind of concussed, honestly.

"Fuck." they say together.

"Maybe later." they say together, snickering.

"Jinx!" says Clint.

Bucky looks at him in confusion. "What's that suppos--" Clint punches him in the arm. "OW! What the hell?"

"Hm, I guess that's a future thing." Clint heads down the trail, whistling innocently, breaking in to a run as he hears Bucky start to chase him. He lets himself be caught a hundred yards later as they come to a clearing - or maybe Bucky just stops toying with him; he can probably run supersoldier circles around Clint. They fall over, panting and laughing, and Clint does not explain the rules of jinx until quite some time later.

=====

"Jinx is not a _game_ , Bucky. It's a _lifestyle_."

=====

Bucky punches _really_ hard.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least he doesn't say "We need to talk," that's the WORST.

Their "more than friendship" winds up being pretty chaste - lots of making out and cuddling, a little groping, but Bucky always cools things down before they go further. Clint is completely ready to pounce after spending his adult life only seeking out one-time flings, avoiding commitment, rushing to the punch-line and then bowing out. But this is his soulmate; he resists the urge to push it and tries to follow Bucky's lead. They both have some pretty epic issues going on, taking it slow is probably smart. And hey, making out with your soulmate is _really nice_. Clint just has... really a lot of showers thinking about assassins afterwards.

=====

As he suspected, "a few weeks" was a very optimistic estimate for finding a solution to the trigger words; Shuri calls Barnes in for various tests now and then, but a month in, the cure is very much still a work in progress. Bucky takes to brooding and taking long walks alone - though he and Clint keep up the habit of a long walk after lunch. 

Finally Clint corners him one day as he's sitting on the window seat glaring at the glorious view. "What's on your mind? You're gonna laser a hole in the window with that stare, man."

Bucky goes to scowl, finds he's already scowling, scowls harder, then painfully tries to paste on an impassive expression. Clint is trying not to smile, but come on. Bucky closes his eyes and tilts his head back; Clint fits himself around Bucky's back and holds him close.

"I'm just getting impatient I guess. Everyone says she's a genius and it's a sure thing, but every day that I'm walking around with those triggers still active terrifies me."

Clint rubs his cheek against Bucky's head. "Hey, it's fine to be scared. You'd be kind of a sociopath if you weren't scared of that, right? But it really is safe here. You've seen how bad-ass the guards and the technology here are."

And they both had; T'Challa had given them a tour of the city, starting with the ridiculous vibranium train system; had shown them the armoury, knowing their interest in weapons, and had invited them to train with the King's Guard and the Dora Milaje if they wished. Bucky declined, wanting to put his fighting days behind him, but he'd gone a few times to watch Clint get thrashed by Okoye. And others, but Okoye seemed to enjoy it the most. Their strange friendship - and Clint thought they were getting to be friends again on this world - was based a lot on Okoye expressing disdain for Clint's disaster-magnet status. So was his friendship with Nat, come to think of it. At least it was good for something.

Bucky sat up a bit more, hugging his knees to himself. "I know, I know. Just there's knowing it, and feeling it, and they're different. And the longer the wait stretches out, the more I feel antsy as hell about it."

"Aw, feelings no." 

Bucky pokes Clint's side for that.

"For what it's worth, I wouldn't get too riled up yet. I know she said a few weeks, but the Shuri back home took seven months. She had some other projects on the go too, mind you. I think this Shuri is more focused because she wants to beat... her record? For curing you?"

Bucky does not look altogether comforted by this. "Everything about this is so fucked up."

Clint laughs and reaches around to run his fingers over Bucky's thigh where his Words are. "Don't worry, we were _fated_ to be all fucked up."

"Oh, well, if it's _fate_ , that's different."

"I knew you'd see it my way."

=====

Bucky seems to settle down for a while, and it's a few weeks until Clint notices his agitation again. This time Bucky comes to him, just about vibrating with tension.

"Bucky? What's up? Is it Shuri? She said she'd have something to show us in a couple days..."

"No, it's... something else. I wanted to um. To ask you."

Clint pats the sofa next to where he's sitting; Bucky sits, but doesn't quite touch Clint, lacing and unlacing his fingers. Clint is suddenly on edge too. Is this a break-up talk? Is that what he's so nervous about? But no, no, he said he had a question, you don't _ask_ someone if they feel like breaking up.

"So you know we haven't... gone to bed yet."

"...yes? I was there. Or uh, not there. You know what I mean." 

"I don't want you to think it's because... I mean you're really... I just wanted to wait."

"No, no, I get that, I mean, the whole situation is weird, and I'm kind of a hot mess, and--"

"What? No you're not. You're.. you're great, Clint. You're amazing."

"I am? Uh. Yeah, The Amazing Hawkeye, that's me, haha! I mean. So that's. Uh." 

The Amazing Hawkeye can hit the bullseye blindfolded and standing on a galloping horse, but get him talking about feelings and he's tripping over himself like one of the clowns. Whoa whoa, enough circus metaphors, head in the game, Barton, Bucky's saying something.

"...mean it. It's not anything about you. I meant that I wanted to wait until my head was fixed. Until I knew I could be... somethin' good for you."

Oh. Ohh.

"Bucky, you're already something good for me. If you never get the triggers out--"

Bucky clenches his hands in to fists and turns a bit pale.

"--uh, not that that will happen! Shuri can definitely do this! But say if. If it never happened, I would still want this. Us. You. I..." Clint pauses for breath, looks over at Bucky with wistful fondness. "You're the amazing one, you know?"

"I'm not--"

"Everything that's happened to you, and you're still trying to get up and move on and keep going. That's amazing. I'm just some guy who looks _really_ good in purple."

Bucky cracks a smile.

Clint grins back. "And who can outshoot you." Now he's playing with fire and he knows it.

"Maybe at pool, lavender lad."

" _Lavender lad?_ "

"Okay there's a reason I never had a superhero name in the comics back in the day, I'm bad at that shit."

"Anyway." Clint reaches over and takes one of Bucky's hands. "We can wait however long you want. I'll be here whenever you're ready. But if you're worrying that I'll only want the safetied version of you? Don't. Because I do. Not. Only want that. I don't only want that. Uh."

Bucky snickers.

"You know what I mean!"

"I do." Bucky scoots sideways in to Clint's space, leans over to lay his head on Clint's shoulder. "But anyway. That wasn't what I was going to ask."

Oh yeah. There was gonna be asking.

"So what's up?"

"I _wanted_ to wait until then... but it's taking longer than I thought and now I can't. I mean well I can, but I'd like it if. I mean." Bucky sits up, scrubs a hand through his hair. "My rut is coming." he blurts out.

"Oh!" Clint says.

"Yeah."

"And that means..."

"I'm going to be... pretty excitable. I'll need to either get a separate room to hole up in with food for 3 or 4 days, or... or we could do it together. If you'd be up for that."

"Shit yeah I'd be up for that!" On a scale of one to ten, Clint's dick is a lead pipe right now. Clint decides to just give himself a free pass on metaphor quality while _all the blood in his brain_ is departing rapidly for points south. 

"Are you sure? It'll be... ruts are pretty intense. And I'm, uh, really strong."

"So you're saying things might get a bit rough?" Clint is going to need two or three showers after this conversation, minimum. 

"Yeah. Maybe... a lot rough?" Four showers.

"Then I am DEFINITELY interested."

Bucky barks a surprised laugh and looks over at Clint, eyes dark with sudden interest, nervousness replaced with... intent. "Is that how it is."

"That's how it is."

"Wanna get some practice in first?"

"Hell yes."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the explicit rating is finally earned! BOYS. Your slow burn was killin' me here.

Practice goes well, but not so well they don't feel the need to practice again right after. And maybe a few more times that night. Bucky is surprisingly tender and sweet, as if wanting to prove that he _can_ be before rut strikes and scruffs up his image. Clint is fine with this. Clint is very fine with this. 

After that, they stop sleeping in separate bedrooms, and Clint's purple wardrobe migrates over to Bucky's room bit by bit. Bucky's room because it smells better, more comfortable, more like his territory - according to Bucky, anyway; Clint can't tell the difference. Wolfpires and their super-snoots, what can you do? 

Bucky calls going to bed "denning up" and Clint finds this totally adorable. He brings over all the pillows from his room one night and makes a blanket fort for their "den." When Bucky comes to bed and sees it, his eyes go huge and he growls and tackles Clint on the bed, gripping him from behind, nosing at his neck and... just about purring, the rumble in his chest is so loud. 

"Aren't we excited tonight!" Clint laughs.

"Mmm, I just... like seeing you all cozy like this. It's like something an omega would do."

"Wait, so the stuff about omegas being the nesting type means _actual nests_?"

"Well, yeah. A lot of omegas don't even use a bed, they just have a nest of bedding and cushions and stuff. In a built-in pit in a real fancy house. I bet they'd have put us up in a suite with one if you were an omega, place like this."

"I honestly did not expect my mad pillow-fort skills would be a turn-on."

Bucky nips at his jaw, kisses his way up to Clint's ear. "You complaining?"

"Nnnngh," Clint says, intelligently. "Nope. Not complaining. No complaints."

"That's what I thought." Bucky returns to kissing along Clint's jaw from behind, rucks up his shirt and starts toying with Clint's nipples. He stops for a moment, licking roughly at the spot where Clint's neck meets his shoulder, then pulls both of their shirts off, letting them fall amid the pillows somewhere.

Clint can feel Bucky's cock grinding against his ass, his own cock rapidly filling to get with the program. He could get to like this sexy blanket fort business. Bucky wraps a strong arm around his torso, manhandles him in to place on the bed, face pushed down in to the pillows, ass in the air. Fuck that's hot. Clint's not a sub exactly, but that kind of casual show of strength and control really does it for him. 

He can hear Bucky shucking his pants and starts to wiggle out of his own too, Bucky helping him pull them free of his calves and feet. Bucky runs a warm hand along Clint's spine, leans way over to kiss at the nape of his neck and then slowly back down to his tailbone. Clint shivers agreeably, anticipating Bucky's next move, and oh, sure enough, there's one cool hand separating his cheeks, then a hot tongue circling his entrance.

"Mmm. 'M hungry," Bucky declares between licks. 

"Oh yeah?" Clint says, trying to sound casual but just sounding wrecked - not that Bucky seems to mind.

"Yup. Dinner just didn't stick to my ribs. Mind if I eat you out?"

Clint had no idea how _silly_ Bucky would be in bed, but he is; he's a fountain of corny lines and dorky jokes and Clint _loves it._

"So I'm dessert tonight?"

"Must be, you're so sweet."

Clint giggles. "Well how can I say no, the-- Ah!" He gasps as Bucky's tongue thrusts roughly inside him, fucking in and out, withdrawing to circle his rim in ticklish little laps, and just generally reducing Clint to a non-verbal, loose-limbed creature of pleasure. A sea cucumber of joy. Clint hopes he didn't say that out loud.

If he did Bucky is ignoring it; he's reaching around with one hand to grasp Clint's cock, the other on his hip to hold him in place. He slowly starts to stroke, lightly, so, so lightly, in time with the movements of his tongue, and Clint is possibly going to explode with the maddeningly tranquil pace. 

"Unnnhhh... Bucky..." Clint whines, articulately.

"Mm hmm?"

"Want more. Harder." Clint caveman. Clint like sex by campfire. Clint want Bucky get club, fuck harder.

Bucky pulls out for a moment. "Oh, do you?" He resumes the same studiedly slow rhythm.

Clint grunts in agony. "You're a bad man."

He can feel Bucky lose it a bit and laugh against his hole. Which is... huh, that's a realllly nice feeling. Clint files this information away for future use. If he doesn't die of sexual frustration first.

But the laugh marks the end of the slow teasing and Bucky is up against Clint's back in a flash, his hand tightening its grip on Clint's cock, the other moving down to push in to him, two fingers right off the bat, scissoring him open. Clint groans happily and presses back against them.

"You like that, mm? You want more, baby doll? All you gotta do is ask." Bucky's endearments always make him sound like a Dick Tracy character; it's weird to realize this is because they're from the same era. Clint tries to reel his floaty mind back in to string together a sentence or two, but he's having trouble focusing on anything while pinned between Bucky's strong, busy hands.

"I wannn," he manages.

"You want more? You want me to put my cock in your pretty little ass, jerk you off? You gotta tell me, sweetheart, I'm just waiting by the phone."

"THAT. Want that. Yesss." Hey, go team mouth! Good wordifying!

A third finger presses in to him easily. "Mmm, honey baby, you're so ready for me, I love it, feels so good." Honey baby. Clint wants to bottle up Bucky's sweet talk and save it for sad rainy days, spread it on toast, add it to his coffee.

The fingers all slide out and Clint makes a disappointed "Nuh" sound, but Bucky is just slicking up his dick, and slides in a moment later, pressing in until the root of his cock rests on Clint's cheeks, in one sweeping motion. "Feels so sweet inside you. You're so good for me, baby. Want to feel you come around me."

There were no questions in there, thank god, because as Bucky starts fucking in to him, picking up speed until he finds a hard, fast rhythm, Clint is definitely not capable of intelligible speech. Bucky's hand on Clint's cock pops off for a moment to awkwardly wrangle with the bottle of lube, then returns, stroking in tandem with his thrusts. Oh fuck, yes, yes, yes.

Bucky is crooning sweet words that Clint can't entirely make out, but he's pretty sure he gets the picture. Bucky's free hand reaches around to cup Clint's balls where they are starting to pull in to his core, and the motion changes his angle just enough to hit-- oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, OH GOD. Clint is coming and coming and coming, and Bucky is stroking him through it, hand drifting to his flank when Clint shivers a little in the over-sensitive afterglow. He's still fucking in to Clint, and Clint is languid and passive, contentedly letting out little huffs and gasps as he's pushed forward in to the pillows with each thrust. 

Bucky is murmuring "You're so good for me, honey, coming just like that for me, so good," and Clint's words are drifting back to earth enough for him to say "Course I am. 'M yours." and this must punch the hell out of Bucky's ticket, because he loses it at that, speeds up franticly and then he's coming too, hot spend filling Clint up. Clint is so warm, so happy, and so, so, just so everything and maybe he said some of that out loud too, because as Bucky collapses over Clint's back, sated and sticky and smug, he whispers "Me too, darlin'. Me too."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rut roh, Shaggy...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow, the A/B/O universe's Scooby Doo cartoons must have been realllly different.

Rut comes two weeks later, and by then it's hard to remember that Bucky was ever nervous to ask, that this could have been a question. Clint picks up the slack and develops some nerves of his own on the day Bucky tells him he's close - that he's in "pre-rut," whatever that means. What if there's some wolf thing he doesn't know what to do about? Clint is afraid to google it in case there is, because it's not like there's going to be an advice column for people from an alternate dimension who have no designation. 

...Fuck his life is weird when he puts it like that. 

Bucky rubs his back and nips at his neck when he catches Clint fretting, and he does his best to relax.

The palace caterers had dropped off a cart full of goodies: sandwiches, little covered bowls of maize porridge with sour milk, coconut rice balls, some kind of pumpkin thing, fruit, chocolate, energy bars, bottles of juice and water, and - and Clint thinks this might be a joking addition from T'Challa or Shuri - a big bag of Cheetos. 

"The food service isn't going to wanna send anyone in during rut - and I won't want them in. I'm gonna be mighty territorial for a bit," Bucky explains. "And we'll be too busy to cook," he adds with a grin.

After hauling the snacks to the bedroom, he rolls up some towels and tucks them against the bottom of the door to their suite. "It won't block all the smell, but it's polite to make an effort, at least." Clint still can't smell anything different, but Bucky assures him his scent is already pretty noticeable. Clint is starting to think he needs a smelling nose dog to clue him in to all the scent cues people drop in this world. Probably that's not a real thing, though. But maybe they could get a dog anyway. Does Bucky like dogs? He must like dogs, they're _soulmates_ , fate wouldn't fuck up _that_ badly.

Clint is looking at dog videos online when Bucky's rut properly begins, and at first thinks the growling he hears is from the laptop's speakers. But no, that would be his shirtless boyfriend, sweatpants tented, looking at him like a tasty cut of meat. Clint closes the laptop hastily. "Bed?" 

"BED," Bucky agrees, and _picks Clint up and carries him there_ and pretty soon there are no clothes on anyone. Bucky isn't wolfman enough to forget lube, but it's zero to in-your-ass pretty quick, and Clint...

Clint is _really_ not complaining.

They're facing each other, Bucky kissing and kissing and kissing him as he moves in Clint, Clint's cock trapped between their bodies, the simple friction almost enough to-- Bucky picks up his pace, faster, rougher, and Clint makes a keening noise and he's coming already, trembling against Bucky's chest. Bucky kisses his cheeks, his eyes, the tip of his nose - and Clint would find that funny if he weren't too come-drunk to really clock it - and then holds his gaze as he keeps up his rhythm. Clint is already getting hard again, the come on his belly making obscene smacking noises as they move together, and Bucky, oh god, Bucky feels _so good_ inside him, intensified, like he's somehow even bigger than bef---

Oh. Ohh. 

There _is_ a wolf thing they forgot to discuss.

Bucky's knot.

Bucky and Clint seem to realize it at the same moment, Bucky looking panicked but still flushed and dark-eyed with lust, trying to think straight through whatever effect rut is having on his presence of mind. Clint freezes and Bucky stills, or tries to, his cock twitching seemingly of its own accord. "Buck--" "Clint, I--" 

Bucky starts pulling out. "Shit, Clint, I'm so--"

Clint grabs his shoulder with a firm hand. "Stop. Wait."

It's Bucky who freezes now. Clint stares up in to his eyes, then grinds his now hard cock up against Bucky's hips. "Where do you think you're going?"

Bucky's eyes close and he moans. "Clint. My knot-- I--" He opens his eyes, as if unable to believe this is actually happening. "Are you sure? It might--" 

Clint grins up at him. "It might! Let's find out."

Bucky doesn't need to be told twice. He resumes moving in Clint, his thrusts becoming shorter and shorter as his knot swells. Clint can feel it against his rim, stretching him wide, and maybe it's the buzz of pleasure from feeling his length crushed against Bucky's abs, but it just feels pleasantly sore, not painful. Bucky is less thrusting now than he is rocking, the knot almost entirely inside Clint, his pucker clenched around the root of Bucky's cock below it. He feels full, so full, and is distantly aware that he's coming again as he feels Bucky's completion come too, Bucky moaning and clutching Clint tight to him. Clint slowly floats back to himself, his cock soft now after coming twice in rapid succession, Bucky still hard and locked inside him. Bucky rolls them gently to their sides, mindful of Clint's oversensitive cock, pulling a pillow in place under their heads, and tugging Clint in close again.

Bucky strokes Clint's hair back fondly, kissing his forehead occasionally. "How's my guy?"

"Your guy is GREAT. Oh my god, Bucky."

"Yeah? It's not..."

"It's... nice. I feel all... stretchy. Like poking a bruise or a loose tooth or something. He sighs happily. "'S nice," he repeats.

Bucky laughs. "Well, glad you like it, 'cause we're stuck here for another half an hour, minimum."

Clint grins sleepily. "Sounds good to me."

"Clint, I--"

"Hey, I forgot too. I knew you had knots." Vaguely.

"Well, I should have remembered. I'm so sorry. We shoulda talked this through before, and I was so worried about the wrong things that I forgot. Things seem so natural with you sometimes that I forget that you didn't grow up in this world. That could have gone real sour. I fucked up and I'm sorry."

Clint listens to this drowsily. "Okay. You fucked up. Apology accepted. I will accept as restitution three more days of mindblowing sex."

Bucky barks a laugh. "I'm tryna be serious here, ya goofball." Clint loves it when the Brooklyn breaks loose.

"Were you? I didn't notice." Clint snuffles his nose against Bucky's chest, idly taking a nipple in his mouth. Bucky squeaks.

"Goofball." 

"Wolfpire."

Bucky kisses the top of Clint's head fondly, and holds him snugly as they wait out the knot. By the time it's gone down enough for Bucky to slip out, 45 minutes later, Clint is sound asleep against Bucky's chest.

=====

The rest of rut is not quite as intense - and less surprising. After the first round they switch positions so Clint's back is to Bucky's front, to make drowsy knot-naps more comfortable. Sleep is erratic, and they lose track of the time of day, shovelling down sandwiches and snacks whenever there's a free moment, regardless of whether it might be the right o'clock or not. Rut-fucking is hungry work.

Midway through day 4 Bucky calls it. Clint's not sure if Bucky feels different or is reading smell language again or what, and is too languid and fucked out to bother asking. They shower the shower of all showers, change the sheets, the pillow slips, even the mattress pad - Clint is amused to see how sturdy, water resistant, and washable it is - linens are serious business in a culture with regular sex marathons - and lay down to sleep it off. 

Ruts. Man. This universe has some perks, Clint will give it that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's like déja vu all over again. But fortunately not like Budapest all over again, yikes.

It's partway through month four at the palace that Shuri has a breakthrough. Apparently the drive to compete - and maybe the lack of a civil uprising during the process - can shave quite a bit of research time off after all. She calls Bucky in for scans on three consecutive days, then holes up for 2 more days refusing communications with everyone in a manic work spree. When she emerges, T'Challa and Okoye hustle her off to her rooms to sleep before trying to do anything else, which she goes along with with surprisingly little fight. "I needed to be well-rested for a final check before I let it touch your mind," she explains the next day when she summons Bucky to the lab, Clint following along without asking or being asked. Their life in the palace is so intertwined at this point that the palace staff almost treat them as a single person.

"So you're ready now?" Clint asks, seeing that Bucky, hands shaking, is not going to speak.

"I am. I have tested it on an exact model of your brain, and re-tested it four times. In all five trials the triggers are completely neutralized without causing additional memory loss. I am ready to proceed whenever you wish, Sergeant Barnes. 

Bucky breathes out a long, shaky breath. "Now. Let's do it now."

Clint looks over. "You sure you don't want to call Steve to be here for this?"

Bucky frowns. "No. He'll just... I'd rather tell him after, when it's done. When we know... when it's for sure done."

Clint holds his gaze for a long moment, then nods. 

Bucky looks at Shuri. "What do I need to do?"

=====

Clint needs to sit down heavily as he watches Bucky lay down on the gurney, be gently put to sleep by the doctor. This is so eerily like the day he was sent to this world. Some part of him is afraid he'll be sent back.

He's not really surprised to realize that he doesn't want to, even if it were possible. For all that that world has his friends, his life, his everything up until just a few months ago... it doesn't have Bucky. It has _a_ Bucky, but not _his_ Bucky. His soulmate. God, and how strange is it to think that he has a soulmate, a soulmate that wants to be with him, after so many years of dreading his Meeting? 

Caught up in his reverie, he almost misses the moment of truth. Shuri stabs at a button with the same flourish Clint has already seen once before, and says "It's done!"

Bucky wakes up to find Clint holding his hand, smiling down at him.

"Hey, sleepyhead. Want to help me practice my Russian?"

=====

Bucky wants Clint to stay away, call in the trigger words remotely, but Clint digs in his heels. "I _know_ this works. I already watched it work once. I'm going to read those words and then kiss the hell out of your non-compliant face." Okay, that line could have used a little romantic polish.

Bucky isn't thrilled, but gives in eventually after T'Challa promises to have soldiers waiting just outside the gymnasium they choose for the test. He writes down the sequence, passes it to Clint, and walks to the far side of the room. Clint thinks that's unnecessary, but stays in his place and starts reading. Bucky is pale-faced and sweating, but still looks himself after the tenth word.

"How do you feel?"

Bucky looks around nervously. "Order me to do something."

"Hop on one foot, soldat!"

Bucky grins and flips Clint off, both feet firmly on the ground. "Don't mind if I don't!"

Clint grins back and strides over, delivering the threatened kisses as Bucky picks him up and swings him around.

=====

Steve is pissed off that he missed it, but also dancing in place with excitement that it worked. He arrives on a Quinjet the next day with Sam in tow.

"All these visits to Wakanda, and they never thought to bring the black guy until now."

Steve reddens. "You were in DC! We were in a--"

"Sure, sure, excuses, excuses."

Clint had forgotten how much he loved watching Sam needle Steve.

Steve catches sight of Bucky and they're hugging and looking like maybe they both want to swing the other one around, but they're close enough to evenly matched that they'd probably just fall over if they tried. Or take out a wall by accident.

"So when are you coming home, Buck?" Steve asks when they finally stop hugging it out.

"Well, I... here's the thing. I might, uh. I might not."

Steve develops an instant case of sad puppy-dog face, and Clint looks up sharply too; this is news to him.

"See, King T'Chaka made me an offer. That if I want to stay, that if I want to... retire from the outside world, from the fighting... I can do it here. He's offered to grant me citizenship here, Steve. I can have my own little hut somewhere quiet, and I don't know, raise goats and whittle and lift heavy things for the neighbours, whatever a guy does in a hut in a super-advanced technological hideaway."

Steve looks poleaxed, his jaw working but no sound coming out.

"It don't mean you won't see me! You can visit whenever you like. But I just... your life is all about fighting still." Steve moves to speak and Bucky holds up a hand. "And it's good! It's right for you. You've been scrapping since the day I met you, and you're not anywhere near ready to stop being who you are, fighting for justice and all that. But me... I am. I've spent a long, long time fighting some pretty ugly fights, and I'm done Steve."

Steve frowns, but starts nodding, puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "I'm gonna miss you. But if you think this is what's right for you, then you've got to do that. I get that."

Bucky breathes out long and slow. "I do. I think it is the right thing to do. I just have to settle one thing first." He looks at Clint. "Will you stay with me?"

Oh. Oh!

Clint's face is doing a thing, he's not sure what. He has to have been staring at Bucky too long because now everyone is looking at him with a bit of concern. He shakes himself and grins, walking over to Bucky and burying his face in his hair. "'Course I will. Of course I will. You don't even have to ask."

"Sure I did."

"Well then yes. Yes I will. You think King T'Chaka will mind?"

"I told him we were kind of a package deal. He said that was fine. Probably figures it's the best way to keep Wakanda secret without us out there blabbering, anyway. Plus I think he finds you amusing."

"Shit, well, I've been called worse. When do we pick out goats?"

Sam loses it at this and starts laughing. "Goats. When does he pick out goats. Someone get this man some goats." Steve starts giggling, the sound so incongruous with his enormous form that Sam starts laughing even harder.

Clint doesn't care. He gets to keep Bucky. Bucky wants to keep him so much he was ready to turn down this safe haven if Clint couldn't be here with him. Clint is the luckiest motherfucker on the planet, in the universe, in all the universes.

Plus goats are cool.


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they all lived happily ever after, except for the part about goats.

Goats are not cool.

Goats are ASSHOLES. 

Clint has spent the three hours since Bucky left for market trying to get little Natasha to get the hell off of the roof of the hut without success. He almost had her coaxed to within grabbing distance once, then he sneezed and all hell broke loose, all six of their goats running in a wild panic in at least eight directions. When the dust settles, Natasha AND Rebecca are on the roof. Goat cheese is just not worth this shit.

Farmer Clint has been giving him some farming lessons over Skype. Turns out they love chatting to each other. They save up the best rotten jokes to share with a guaranteed appreciative audience, talk archery shop, trade stories of how past missions - some they have in common, some not - went wrong. Wow do they remember Budapest differently. Clint gets to know Laura, who is just the sweetest thing ever, as well as Farmer Clint's kids - they think it's _hilarious_ that their dad suddenly has a twin. But when Clint asks for advice about goats, Farmer Clint just laughs and laughs and says "Sure, here's my advice. Never raise goats," and goes back to killing himself with laughter. Spoilsport.

When Bucky returns around lunch time, Clint is sitting on a stump, resting and... strategizing. Strategically. Bucky whistles, and the goats hop off the roof, just like that, placid as anything. Bucky says he's just a natural, but Clint is pretty sure the little old ladies in the village down the road have been giving him tips. Little old ladies freaking love Bucky, patting him on the head, like, actually patting him on the head, and pushing baskets of home-cooked food in to his hands, and clucking approvingly when they watch him play with the children who follow him around. The kids whisper "White wolf! White wolf!" and dare each other to dart up and touch him. Bucky pretends not to notice them until the last second, when he turns and growls, and then they shriek and race back before creeping up behind him again. 

Clint's relationship to the village is more "running gag" after falling out of trees a couple times too many in public view. Mostly because Bucky pushed him, but then there was that time he was just trying to nap, and oh well. He's just leaning in to it these days, landing with a flip and moving in to a handspring and a triumphant "I meant to do that!" pose.

Usually Clint just shakes his head to see Bucky do his goat whisperer thing, but after today's ordeal, Clint is ready to murder something. Anything. Everything. All the things.

Bucky walks up, kisses the top of his head, and sets a bag of groceries in front of Clint. "Before you kill me, look in the bag."

The bag has flour, tomatoes, a coil of sausage, some bundles of herbs... is that basil? 

"BUCKY," Clint breathes. "Are you..."

"Yup. Gonna make pizza. And you can't kill the goats; I won't be able to make it again with no cheese."

Clint feels very known and loved in this moment. He stands up and turns around, grabbing Bucky in the biggest pizza-hug he can manage. "I love you. Did I mention I love you? PIZZA. You're the perfect man. Will you marry me?"

Bucky laughs. "I don't know about marryin'. I ain't been to church in a while." He turns shy all of a sudden, putting a hand behind his neck and blushing a bit. "I uh. I was thinking of somethin' close, though."

=====

It's full dark out, the pizza they ate at twilight (slightly burnt; the dough was a little overworked; Bucky took notes for next time) just a pleasant memory now. There are candles lit up all around the room, more than they'd usually bother with, but this is special.

Bucky's eyes are closed, his hands at Clint's hips as Clint moves above him, inside him, slow and sweet and tender. Clint leans in for a kiss, and Bucky moves a hand up, holding Clint's head in place, tongue licking in to his mouth, exploring, speaking without words all the things Bucky has saved up in his heart. Clint, heated and eager and inestimably fond - and a little bit nervous; he wants to get this right - starts picking up speed, one hand on Bucky's cock where it's snugged between their bodies, warm and slick and so ready. Bucky breaks the kiss to draw a breath, another, more gasps than anything else. 

"You close, baby?" Clint murmurs, voice soft even as his movements grow bolder. Bucky nods, eyes closing, face scrunching up against the intensity of feeling. 

"Unh..! Clint, Clint."

"What do you want, sweetheart?"

"I'm so close... if you're still..."

"I'm still sure. I am so, so sure." Bucky groans at this, pushing up in to Clint's hand. "What do I need to do?"

"Just... right here." Bucky taps the side of his neck. "Break the skin. Oh, god, I'm..." And just like that Bucky is coming, head curling forward instinctively, fighting through the fog of pleasure to tilt his neck and expose it. Clint leans in and bites, hard, at the place where Bucky's neck meets his shoulder. He's not sure at first if he has the right spot, but Bucky is wild now, body going stiff as his cock leaks come between them, little cries of "Ah! Ah! Ah!" punctuating his breaths, a look of total ecstasy on his face.

And Clint, well, Clint's not made of _stone_. His rhythm is lost as soon as he looks at Bucky's absolutely wrecked expression, at his cock hot and hard and spurting, and oh, he's caught too, he's coming, the tremors of Bucky's orgasm gripping him. He drops his head down, panting, and then Bucky is biting him back, canines piercing the tender skin of his neck, the intensity of his release obscuring whatever pain this causes, his mind caught up in--- oh, oh, OH

Clint is devoted to Bucky, knows the mating bite is important to him, is willing to do just about anything to show he cares. He hadn't really thought it would affect him other than as a decoration, maybe, if it managed to scar up. He's not _from_ this world; there's no wolf in him, no pack designation, he can't smell the pheromones everyone colours their communication with. This is a show of solidarity, a symbolic act. He thinks.

He thinks so, so wrong. Bucky bites in to his neck and something explodes in Clint's mind, and Bucky is THERE. Of course Bucky is there, he's in Clint's arms, Clint's cock is in his ass-- but now he can feel him on a new axis, a new sense springing in to life. He's not sure how, but he is certain that he could find Bucky anywhere, blindfolded, a warm sense of his presence tugging at him as true as any of Clint's arrows in flight. And he can feel other, more nebulous things. His soul words are alight with their usual fizz, the joined perception that physical contact has brought ever since Bucky said his words - but deeper, better, harder. In some way he _is_ Bucky, and Bucky is him, and they are braided and woven and bound together, and this is so much more than Clint could ever have guessed.

Bucky's eyes are so wide, meeting his, but Clint doesn't need to see his expression to know the wonder and shock that Bucky also feels; he feels it alongside him with this new and treasured intimacy. Neither of them saw this coming, but oh, it's good, so good, and so satisfying, like biting in to the crispest apple, like walking in to a warm house from the cold, like smelling something good on the stove, like punching a Nazi. Why is Clint thinking about Nazis right now, go home Clint you're drunk. Wait you are home. The homiest. Home is so hometacular right now. Clint, the personification of incoherent in this moment, snuggled incomprehensibly against Bucky, is possibly saying "meep" with a goofy look on his face but shhh you can't prove it.

They lay tangled together for a long while once he softens and slips out of Bucky, Clint rolling them over so Bucky is tucked up against his side. The raw intensity of the experience starts to fade, but a tiny fire in the back of his mind stays lit - Bucky, it's Bucky, it's always Bucky. The space has been saved for him there since Clint was born, though he only realizes it now. His Words settle back to their usual background tingle, and the bite on his neck feels that tingle too, as if marked by the same strange pen.

=====

In the morning his bite and Bucky's look identical, both red and smooth, with no way to tell that Clint's was torn in to foreign-born skin. Bucky is brushing it shyly with his fingertips, awed, when Clint wakes up. 

Bucky leans over to press a kiss to his temple. "Hey sugar."

Clint grins dopily up at Bucky. "Hiya."

"That was--"

"So much--"

"I know." they say in unison.

"Jinx!" says Clint.

"Fuck you," says Bucky.

Clint punches him lightly, just for form's sake. 

"You smell, do you know that?" says Bucky, wonderingly.

"Jeez, just because you always lose at Jinx..."

"No, I mean... you smell like me," Bucky says, voice soft and serious. "You smell mated."

Clint's eyes go round and wide. "I do?"

"Yep. You still don't smell like any designation, but..." a proud little smile is lighting up Bucky's face. "You smell like you're _mine_ "

"Sweetheart," Clint says softly, voice cracking a bit, "I've been yours since the day we met."

"Sap."

"Your sap."

"Damn right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may think the original universe people, who have nothing left of Clint but an empty set of clothes, are not living happily ever after. But they get a new Clint a few weeks later from a universe where he also touched the thing he shouldn't have.
> 
> =====
> 
> Thanks for making it to the end of my weird little trope steel cage match! The title is from Clint and Farmer Clint's second favourite joke:
> 
>      How is a stop sign like a school bus?  
>      They're both red except the school bus!
> 
> Their favourite, which all of Farmer Clint's kids have memorized, is:
> 
>      What's yellow and flies through walls?  
>      A magic banana!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yamtimesthree), yellin' about Bucky usually.


End file.
